So sad! I painted this last night for two friends who have to go back to Brazil next week, they will be sorely missed. Come back soon, guys!

Cool stuff from some of my favourite comics people I first discovered on LiveJournal:

I've been subscribing to Matthew Reidsma's monthly comics (reidsrow) and this month's comic, Fluff Boy... man, is it lush!! The whole thing is so beautifully crafted, with a great story by Matt, and another by three people I hadn't heard of, Liz Prince, Joe Quinones and Maris. I totally went crazy over their story, showing where marshmallows come from (Grown on bushes? Netted from the sea? Harpooned? Mined? Ghostbusted?). Best thing I've seen in ages. And I was thinking that even the three pages of adverts at the end somehow fit in very well, and then realised these guys had designed and drawn every single little ad themselves! There's a lot of work that went into that thar comic, and the attention to detail gets my total respect. And I like how the comic features their community, Somerville, Massachusetts, which happens to be the place where marshmallow fluff was invented. Makes me want to go do a comic about some slightly obscure aspect of my neighbourhood, and it isn't hard to find comics people around here. (You can find out more and buy your copy here.)Here's a picture of Stuart and me modeling (mugging?) with Fluff Boy:

Lucy Knisley (lucylou) has an great interview with Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter, on the relaunch of her book French Milk. I bought the early self-published version and I'll be curious to compare it with the new edited version. I was happy to see that Lucy cites Archie comics as one of her early influences. When I was on the panel at the Bath kids lit festival, one of the guys was a bit sniffy (in a joking way, but still!) about my early Archie days, and it warms my heart, it does, to hear that someone else did okay and was not too irrevocably damaged after reading through giant stacks of Archie. Hooray!

And the London Underground Comics gang have just put out a funny video with Paul Gravett to promote their Comiket day at the ICA on 22 November. Their videos regularly feature lots of Sean Azzopardi (seanazz) doing spots of slightly bewildered-looking dancing, which is actually better than it sounds.